Union expects $50M in backpay from province for civil servants

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This article was published 20/05/2022 (1268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba taxpayers are on the hook for more than $50 million in retroactive pay as a result of the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union arbitration award this week.

The union estimates that’s how much the government owes 11,000 civil servants for the four-year deal dating back to 2019, not including interest on the retroactive pay.

The union took legal action when the Progressive Conservative government refused its request for arbitration.

In question period Thursday, NDP MLA Tom Lindsey called it “one more mess Brian Pallister left behind” after the former premier, bent on balancing the budget, “picked a fight with front-line workers.”

The labour critic noted the PC members voted in favour of a contentious 2017 wage-freeze bill — the Public Sector Sustainability Act — that’s come back to haunt the government with court battles and arbitration awards.

It set the tone when the MGEU began bargaining in 2019. When the two sides hit an impasse, the union asked then-finance minister Scott Fielding to allow an arbitration panel to settle the contract. He refused and the union took the government to court. In 2021, after the Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled that the refusal was “unreasonable,” an arbitration panel was appointed.

In its decision Wednesday, the panel awarded wage increases well above the wage-freeze bill guidelines, which were zero per cent in the first two years of any new public-sector union contract, followed by increases of no more than 0.75 per cent and one per cent in years 3 and 4.

“What did all this mistrust and fighting get us? Nothing,” Lindsey told the house. “Will this government now reject the legacy of Brian Pallister and commit to fair negotiations without government interference going forward for public-sector workers?” he asked.

Labour Minister Reg Helwer, whose government is in the process of repealing its wage-freeze bill, said the PCs are “happy with how this ended up.”

“Sometimes arbitration occurs,” Helwer said. “It’s a natural process and, in this case, it did occur at the request of the union.”

He indicated the award imposed by the arbitration panel mirrored what his government had in mind from the outset.

“In this circumstance, the government’s position was validated and the award was similar to what we expected to come out of negotiation, and we’re very happy with how this ended up,” Helwer said.

The head of the union accused the labour minister of trying to “rewrite history.”

“If the province had been up front about its monetary position at the bargaining table, a negotiated settlement could well have been achieved,” MGEU president Kyle Ross said in an email late Thursday.

“No monetary offer was ever presented by the province at the bargaining table. The province only made a monetary proposal after it was forced by the court to participate in the interest arbitration process,” Ross said.

The wage increases awarded by the arbitration panel — whose nominees were chosen by the union and the government — are 1.4 per cent in March 2019, 0.5 per cent in 2020, 1.65 per cent in 2021, and two per cent effective March 26, 2022.

“It is noteworthy that the arbitration award, which covers four years spanning from 2019 into early 2023, includes no years with a wage freeze and three years in which pay increases are higher than the freezes or minimal increases the PC government sought to impose on public-sector workers with its now-repealed legislation,” said David Camfield, labour studies professor at the University of Manitoba.

The government was ordered to pay $7,000 toward the union’s court costs.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca